Photo courtesy of Parker Coffman
I was recently asked to speak at FILO conference on the topic “practical tips for getting a good drum sound.” I had prepared content that you might expect: microphone choices, compression settings, tasteful effects, and so on. However, once I started talking I did a quick survey of the room and I realized that for most people in the room, getting a good drum sound was a very subjective problem because of one massive variable we are not in control of: the room.
If you and the music director make the decision “to execute every song in the set just like the record” AND you have a difficult room, you are making the choice to deliver a poor audio experience.
School gyms, converted commercial buildings and cathedral ceilings--few of us sound engineers are afforded a proper room to mix in, a room that was designed for sound reinforcement of music. When we talk about getting a good drum sound, a lot of the effort is going into trying to manage the acoustical limitations. There are many kinds of products to deal with this: cymbal baffles, drums shields, full enclosures, rocket sticks, low-volume cymbals, and digital drums. These are the tool kits designed to deal with the problem of room acoustics, but we need a different approach. Let me explain my thinking on this.
The hard truth
Any audio product designed to shield or contain the sound is going to have adverse effects in three ways. No. 1: The reflections are going to smear the drum sound in some way. You are putting a reflective surface inches away from the source, and the sonic impact is unavoidable. No. 2: When you give an inexperienced and loud drummer a shield, it’s giving the player the message, “It’s ok for you to continue to overplay the room because this shield will fix it.” No. 3: They just look bad. Seriously, just ask your video director.
… this is an issue that is not solely placed on the audio engineer or even the drummer to fix.
Drum product solutions are also problematic. For example, first, rocket sticks deliver a particular tone, not just a quiet snare sound. It’s an apples and oranges comparison. Second, low volume cymbals have a similar effect on a young drummer as the drum shield—the drummer will still tend to overplay them and bottom out the tone of the cymbals. Then third, digital drums have come a long way, but they lack the organic and human dynamics that we feel when there is a drummer playing a set of real drums in the room.
Potential problems and definite solutions
Now, lean in and promise me that you will not let the secret out. Here’s the secret to getting a good drum sound: get a seasoned drummer to play appropriately for the room. Of course that’s easier said than done when your only option is a young drummer who is volunteering his time, but I can’t let up on this point. So let me break down the performance problems I am talking about, and offer some solutions that you and your musical director can work on with your team.
The drummer's monitor mix should include overhead mics and kick drum, and that is all (emphasis added). The drummer no longer can say, “Can I have less cymbals in my mix?” because their only option is to play the cymbals quieter.
Volume: This is the most obvious one. When a drummer hits the snare drum too hard and loud for the room, it affects things in several ways. It typically ends up getting into any vocal mic that is in front of the drum kit. These vocal mics all pick up the snare drum at slightly different times and all of these small delay times end up causing phase relationship problems. Since any vocal mic is far away from the snare drum, this ends up being a thinner sound than the close mic on the drum itself. Additionally, a snare drum can easily hit 90 dB in any loud, reflective room. This means that you will have to push the PA past this level in order to get the big fat, close-mic’d snare sound you are after. It’s a wrestling match and adding PA volume is the only way to win, but that can get out of hand very quickly.
Getting a good drum sound is a very subjective problem because of one massive variable: we are not in control of the room.
Solution: One great way to help your drummer play appropriately for the room is to use in-ear monitors (IEM) --- but you must help them monitor their sound the correct way. It is far too easy for a drummer to use their IEM mix to numb their own performance, and this always causes overplaying. My fix for this is to use overhead microphones as the primary information the drummer hears in their mix. The overhead mics should be 3–4 feet over the center of the snare drum (mono or stereo is fine). It should be EQ’d flat so that the drummer gets a full picture of what the drum kit sounds like. Add a bit of the kick drum to this mix and that is all (emphasis added). The goal is to give the drummer the best sense of what the kit sounds like naturally. The drummer no longer can say, “Can I have less cymbals in my mix?” because their only option is to play the cymbals quieter. This is what we want: a drummer who plays the shells louder than the cymbals. This, by the way, is how some of the most seasons drummers I’ve worked with in the studio and onstage like to hear their kit. They want to feel and hear every detailed touch of their performance.
Pitch: Every acoustic space has resonant frequencies--frequencies that jump out more than others. As the sound engineer, it is your responsibility to understand your room and which frequencies are diminished or emphasized in your room. Every acoustic drum kit has resonant frequencies, as well. Some drums like to be tuned higher, and some lower. It’s your drummer’s job to understand the kit and where this kit sounds best. However, sometimes a room and kit don’t quite get along. Any drum can have a more prominent resonant tone to it and if this tone and pitch happens to be resonant to the room, then this will stick our far more than the other elements of the drum kit.
It’s a wrestling match and adding PA volume is the only way to win, but that can get out of hand very quickly.
Solution: It takes the sound engineer and the drummer working together to find the best tuning for your kit in your room. Don’t settle on just making the kit dead, it’s possible to get a musically and tonally interesting drum sound, but you will only achieve this harmony by spending time together in the room on this. There are no short cuts. Your drummer will hit and tune and hit and tune over and over and over again until you find just the right spot for the room.
Parts: Yes, drummers change their parts based on the rooms they play. I’ve been a part of countless worship events where this has happened, particularly events in other countries in spaces not designed for worship events. When your room has a natural reverb decay of seven seconds (yes, we timed it out when we were in Zimbabwe), every subdivision and every loud crash starts to add up to an overwhelming wave of loud--washy information that takes away from the song.
Solution: I’ve seen drummers simplify 16th note patterns to quarter note patterns and I’ve seen them decide not to play any fills for an entire song. I’ve seen artists decide to ditch the full band version of a song and instead perform a slower, more acoustic version of the song. All of these efforts were made in order to do one thing: help people connect to the song and not let the audio limitations of the room be a distraction.
The takeaway
So now that I’ve removed any product-based solution, and we’ve identified we need an appropriate player on the kit, you can invite your music director or worship leader into the room, because this is an issue that is not solely placed on the audio engineer or even the drummer to fix. You and your music director need to start with a bigger conversation. The question to ask and understand is “what are we trying to achieve on Sunday morning in the audio experience?” If the answer to that question is “to execute every song in the set just like the record” AND you have a room that makes it impossible to achieve that, then you are making the choice to give the people on Sunday morning a poor audio experience.
There are really only a few options from here: Are you going to treat the room and get a better PA in order to continue performing things the same way; Are you going to change the musical approach that is a better fit for the room; Or are you going to just have a loud and mediocre audio experience? I would argue we should be giving people the best audio experience possible on Sunday, but you have to come to this decision with your team in your own way. Just be aware of the factors that are giving you the results you have.
Compression settings, new plug-ins, the right kick drum mic, a new EQ setting--none of this matters when you hear your room over everything else. Stop chasing your tail on these things because you’re wasting your time and the listener is the one who suffers.
It’s time to assess your listening environment with your creative team and make some tough calls on your approach on Sunday. Believe me, changing your musical approach will not limit what God can do.
